Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Michaela Goldhaber, current artistic director of Wry Crips, talks to the founding and early members of the disabled women’s theatre group about their history.

John Meredith and M Sloth Levine, of StageSource’s Gender Explosion Initiative, discuss ways theatremakers can dismantle stigmas against trans people and continue creating an inclusive theatre scene.

Robert Hubbard discussions Madeline Sayet’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the South Dakota Theatre Festival.

Jill Marie Bradbury reflects on the Deaf Theatre Action Planning Session, co-produced by HowlRound, when thirty Deaf, DeafBlind, and hard of hearing theatre artists, administrators, and scholars gathered in Boston for a weekend-long convening.

Part II of the conversation between Bill Rauch and Nataki Garrett—the outgoing and incoming artistic directors of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival—touches on inspiring leadership choices, pacing yourself, and cultivating diverse audiences.

Part I of the conversation between Bill Rauch and Nataki Garrett—the outgoing and incoming artistic directors of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival—touches on personal values, gratitude, and how the joy lives in the struggle.

Jordan Schwartz discusses gentrification in developing neighborhoods, how artists moving in need to work with the existing communities, and what kind of change that can bring about.

Claudia Alick talks about growing up as an abled youth and her sudden onset illness as an adult, how areas of inaccessibility in the theatre suddenly became hypervisible to her, “crip time,” and more.

Alix Rosenfeld talks about the difference between inclusion and belonging when it comes to working with the disability community, using the Philadelphia-based FringeArts production of A Fierce Kind of Love as an example.

Bri Ng Schwartz looks at the importance of companies doing the hard work when it comes to equity, diversity, and inclusion conversations and initiatives.

Carl(os) Roa offers thoughts on how organizations can create healthier workspaces, weaving in ideas from artists at Philadelphia Young Playwrights and Applied Mechanics.

Adam Roberts talks about the devising process used at TILT, a performance company in Austin, Texas, that celebrates the creative work of adult actors with disabilities.

Chantal Bilodeau examines data from the Climate Change Theatre Action initiative, which she runs, to better understand how racial and gender bias plays out in the theatre world.

Jamie Potter from Middle Child Theatre discusses how their New Critics' Programme is helping grow and diversify theatre criticism in the UK. 

Playwright Jenny Kokai talks about co-writing a piece of theatre for young audiences with her now twelve-year-old son.

Tim Collingwood talks about the importance of creating “ability-positive” theatre so that people with different ability statuses have the chance to see themselves represented on stage.

Joanna Lugo and Leah Harris use Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions as a framework to speak out about gender inequalities they've notice in the theatre community, and call on the larger theatre community to fight for gender parity.

Arizona State University student Ricky Quintana talks about taking his education into his own hands—by devising his own show—after a school production was cancelled earlier this year due to unforeseen circumstances.